


The Other Half Of Me

by Ultra



Category: Angel: the Series, Leverage
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Character Death, Childhood Memories, Danger, Dark Magic, Demons, Drama, Eliot Spencer Whump, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Love, Magic-Users, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Protective Eliot Spencer, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Sex, Spells & Enchantments, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2019-07-17 13:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16096907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: When Parker thinks she sees a doppelganger of Eliot, she can't know how shocking the truth will be, or how what the hitter is about to tell her might eventually change her life forever.





	1. I.  Brother, Where Art Thou?

It was strange to be reunited in Boston after six months apart, though Eliot had to admit he had kind of missed the team. He never said it, never would, because that wasn’t his way, but inside he knew he was glad to see these four faces again.

Years of running solo, he always figured it was the best and safest way for him to be, and yet this particular crew had got under his skin, become his friends and confidantes when he wasn’t really paying attention. Being back amongst them felt good, even if Nate was already swearing there would be no more cons under his lead.

They stayed at the bar for a while after he was gone, talking over things, drinking maybe a little too much. Eliot was happy enough just to hang out for the evening, except Parker was starting to bug him. He thought she was staring at him earlier, but didn’t focus on it too much and figured she would stop after a while. Maybe it was just something she did when she saw people again after a long time, there was no way to tell with Parker, she was twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag, and no mistake.

As the evening went on, Eliot was sure she had to be staring for a purpose, and yet he was almost certain she would have come out and said it if she had a question or a reason. It was when Sophie had gone home and Hardison decided to call it a night too, leaving hitter and thief alone, that he finally decided to confront her.

“Okay, what’s goin’ on with you?” he asked, finishing off his drink and refusing another when the barman offered a refill.

“Going on with me, how?” asked Parker, in complete innocence.

Eliot might have been mad at anyone else for messing him around, but with this little blonde, he actually believed she was oblivious. Since they were sat a ridiculous distance apart for private conversation, he got up and moved around to take the bar-stool next to hers.

“You’ve been staring at me all night, Parker,” he pointed out to her, just a hint of a smirk on his lips that he couldn’t help.

It had vaguely crossed his mind that she was checking him out. Sure, she was kind of wacky and all, but she was still a woman, and without being vain, Eliot knew women dug both the bad boy thing and the muscle-bound hero type. Still, Parker rarely had the same thoughts or reactions to any other person he knew, so it was likely she had her own other reasons for her gazing at him in such a way.

“It’s probably nothing.” She shrugged, draining her glass. “I just... I thought I saw you, like a month ago,” she explained, “but you looked kinda different, and now you look just like I remember, so it can’t have been you.”

Something in Eliot’s eyes as she told him that made her stop and stare some more. Parker had been about to hop down from her stool and leave the bar, but the expression on the hitter’s face right now didn’t sit right with her at all. Reading people really wasn’t her strong point, but this was one of those shifty looks that she knew meant a lie had been told or was coming soon. Eliot really didn’t lie to her or the team, she was sure, and that was what had her so confused.

“Was it you?” she checked, thinking it to be impossible until this moment.

Eliot moved his head as if to shake it in the negative, but stopped just short of doing so as he peered sideways at her from around his hair.

“Where?” he asked in a low voice she almost didn’t hear.

“Passing through the south somewhere,” she told him, thoughtfully. “Um, Texas maybe? I don’t know exactly, I went from bus to bus, then a train...” she rattled on, though Eliot ceased to hear her talk of travelling across the states.

His mind was preoccupied, coming up with the only real and likely explanation for her thinking she saw him that way. It kind of made sense, even though it shouldn’t, but explaining it to Parker would be impossible. Eliot kept much of his life hidden from the team, bits and pieces spilled out here and there, but for the most part all they knew of him up to now was related to his work and skill set. He introduced them to a couple of girls he was dating, no harm to be done there since he always knew he’d never keep the same chick around for too long. His family never really came into conversation, his childhood, his life before the career criminal guise took over.

“Eliot?” the thief beside him poked him in the arm, almost managing to make him jump. “Who did I see that day?” she asked him, with a frown that wouldn’t shift.

It didn’t make sense for it to have been the hitter himself, Parker knew that, but he seemed to know he had a doppelganger. Something wasn’t right here and she needed now to know what that something was.

“Nobody,” he said, barely meeting her eyes and getting up too quickly from his seat then. “Just a ghost,” he muttered, before walking away.

Parker sat staring at Eliot’s back as he disappeared out of the bar, letting the door swing wildly in his wake. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box when it came to human emotion, but even Parker knew she had somehow upset or angered him. It hadn’t been intentional, of course not. She was oddly thrilled to be back amongst this team and though Nate was saying they were not a crew anymore, that no more jobs were going to be done, she didn’t like the idea of any of her make-shift family being mad at her, least of all Eliot. Besides, she knew damn well the man she saw in Texas was not a ghost. He was as real and solid as anybody she ever saw, even if it was at a distance and not for very long. She wanted an explanation, more than just a couple of words. Her curiosity was practically legendary and she wasn’t letting this go.

Hopping down from her stool, she headed out of the door that had only just now stilled its movement, and made to follow the hitter wherever he might go next. Obviously she was well practised at creeping around, not being caught, but even she had her doubts how long she could really get away with tracking Eliot Spencer before he realised what was going on. This was perhaps why Parker was so surprised when they got half way across town without him batting an eye.

The truth was, Eliot hadn’t been so distracted in years. He thought he had a handle on it, thought whatever he heard would no longer surprise him. If anybody was going to knock the wind out of sales it had to be Parker. She had a way of disarming him that was odd and disturbing at times. He figured it was why he got so mad at her as easily as he did, and at the same time, why she fascinated him. He never met another person like her the whole course of his life.

Eliot was climbing the stairs to his Boston apartment when he realised something was wrong. That person he was thinking of, the cat burglar, the enigma that was Parker. She was nothing if not determined when she wanted something, and tonight she had wanted answers from him, something she really hadn’t got before he left the bar. Stopping walking with one foot on one stair and the other on the landing outside his door, Eliot peered back over his shoulder. There was nobody there, not a movement of a shadow or the sound of a breath. Telling himself he was a paranoid and a vain idiot to think Parker would be so interested in him to be following him around, Eliot shook his head and let himself into his apartment. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he flipped on the light and found the little thief sat cross-legged in his armchair, though he hid the shock well and just growled in annoyance instead.

“What the hell are you doin’, Parker?” he asked, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Sitting,” she answered, annoyingly literal as ever. “Now, tell me who I saw in Texas,” she tried again, apparently unphased by Eliot’s evident anger or by the fact she had entered his apartment uninvited before he even managed to get there himself.

The questions were there on his tongue; Why was she here? Why did she need to know who she saw? How the hell had she gotten in here ahead of him? All died before ever making out of his mouth and Eliot knew why. Just as soon as Parker had answered anything he asked in the most succinct way possible, she would just want to go back to asking her own questions. He would feel obliged to answer because she had, or she would tell him he should, and this thing would never end. The better plan had to be just to throw her ass out and forget this whole night ever happened.

“You didn’t see me, okay?” he told her in eventual answer to her question.

Immediately she was on her feet, her mouth opening, ready with another question that he wouldn’t want to hear and wasn’t prepared to answer.

“No.” Eliot shook his head before she ever got a chance to form the words. “No more questions, we’re not doing this,” he told her, putting his hands to her shoulders, gently but firmly. “You’re leaving now,” he said as he moved her towards the door and opened it up.

A little shove put her in the hallway and Eliot turned his back, wishing her away. Like that was ever really going to happen.

“You can kick me out but you know I’ll get back in,” she told him, a hint of humour in her tone.

She thought he was very dumb for thinking that putting her out on the doorstep would make a difference. It wasn’t the way she’d come in, and she could find at least six other entrances into his place long before he’d ever think of them or be able to block them up. They both knew it, just as they knew his answering her big question of the night was inevitable.

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. This wasn’t going away, Parker wasn’t going away, and the only way she might just leave before he went completely insane was if he answered her honestly. When he turned back around he wasn’t surprised to find her inside the apartment again, the door closed behind her and her arms folded across her chest. She could be as determined as he was when she wanted to be, maybe more so, since Parker never relied on any real kind of logic to back her up.

“Fine.” He sighed, going to the mantle shelf and taking down a frame.

The picture showing was not the point, Parker realised, as she craned her neck to see it and failed miserably. She gave up when she noticed Eliot had turned it over and was pulling another photograph from behind. There was a moments pause as he stopped and stared at the picture in his hand for a moment, the oddest smile coming to his lips, albeit briefly, before the item was unceremoniously shoved toward Parker.

She really hadn’t a clue what she was going to see when he handed her this apparently secret picture, not an idea at all had formed in her head. If it were anyone else they might at least have had an inkling of what the explanation for Eliot’s doppelganger might be, but as previously noted, Parker really wasn’t like everybody else.

From the photo to Eliot and back, her eyes flicked up and down two or three times before she voiced her realisation.

“You have a twin brother,” she said with no hint of shock nor any other identifiable emotion.

“I did,” confirmed Eliot as he moved and sank down onto the couch with his face in his hands.

“You did?” she checked as she moved to join him, propping herself on the arm at the other end of the couch. “What does that mean?” she wanted to know, receiving no answer as Eliot kept his gaze away from her, running his hands back through his hair.

It was hard to say if she was more surprised by what he wouldn’t fully explain or he was by the realisation he had come to make about his twin tonight.

“Eliot!” she prompted when he was silent too long, waving the photo at him for good measure when he finally looked her way. “This guy is real and alive. I saw him,” she insisted. “Why would you say he was a ghost?”

“Because he’s supposed to be dead!” he snapped, perhaps a little too sharply and coldly.

It wasn’t her fault, poor little Parker. She wasn’t built to understand what he couldn’t tell her, not even the emotions attached to the basic story. To elaborate on it would be too much for either of them right now, of that he was certain.

“Parker.” Her name was no more than a sigh as it escaped his lips then. “I can’t talk to you about this right now,” he told her with a shake of his head as he picked the photo back out of her grasp and stared at it.

There were a hundred questions still filling the thief’s head and she really wanted to ask all of them, but her tongue was frozen in her mouth and her vocal chords refused to budge. She knew the pain of losing a brother, not that Eliot realised it. She knew what it was to have a person so beloved and close to you suddenly be gone. Sure, she never had a twin, not even a real blood-sibling, but she could imagine the pain of thinking one was gone. It had been bad enough for her, even though her own brother was only a fellow foster kid.

If there was a chance that Eliot had been wrong about his twin, if he wasn’t actually dead, surely that should make him happy. Parker saw no signs of joy, only pain written on Eliot’s face right now. If she didn’t know better she’d actually think he was going to cry. She had an urge to run away, something she got all too often from situations, though she had never before wanted to bolt from Eliot. He always made her feel safe, even when he was snarling and spitting like an angry dog, she never flinched because he was okay, he was Eliot.

Right now, she still had no fear of his fury, only panic of how she would cope if he actually showed an emotion other than anger. If he cried, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with that, which was why the very next time he looked up from his picture, Eliot realised Parker was gone.

His mind barely registered on the fact she must have crept out in complete silence, or that he was so caught up in scrambled thoughts and memories and emotions that he just hadn’t been paying any attention at all. There was a good chance it was a mixture of those two things.

Running a hand over his face, Eliot stood up and set the photograph in his hand carefully back on the mantle, leaning it against the knick-knacks already present. Two identical teenage boys stared back at him, proud as punch to have graduated High School, their arms locked around each others shoulders as they smiled widely for the camera. Somehow it all seemed like another life to Eliot, and was sure his brother, his not dead but very much alive somewhere brother, must feel the same.

Speaking in hushed tones that nobody else ever heard him use, he asked the other boy in the picture the ultimate question he craved an answer to right now;

“What the hell are you doin’, Lindsey?”


	2. II. Big Brother is Watching

"Hello, little brother.”

Of all the people Eliot expected to see, of all the words he expected to hear, he had been completely unprepared for this moment. It was a disconcerting feeling for the hitter who was always one step ahead of the game, a place he had to be in order to stay alive. He didn’t ask how he had got into the apartment, because he could figure it out on his own. He didn’t even ask why he was here, not yet, it wasn’t the right time.

“You need to quit calling me that,” he said flatly, tossing his keys on the table, muscles protesting at the sharp movement after the battles of the day. “There’s only two minutes between us, remember?”

Lindsey smirked at that but didn’t argue the point.

“What, no hug?” he checked. “Not even after you spent the last two months looking for me?”

It was true enough. From the night the team reformed and Parker mentioned seeing an Eliot doppelganger whilst passing through Texas, Eliot had spoken to contacts and called in favours, hoping to track his apparently not-dead twin brother down. It wasn’t an easy task, not when it was clear he had his reasons for staying hidden. Lindsey had as many prices on his head as Eliot himself had, maybe more, but from different kinds of powerful people, not to mention non-people.

“You’re one surprise too many this week,” said the slightly younger of the twins with a shake of his head.

This latest con had turned out to be almost more trouble than it was worth. It was one thing going up against another crew, but one as experienced as the guys the Leverage team just faced? Not a fun game to play. Of course, he and Raquel Diane getting ‘acquainted’ hadn’t been a bad thing, but that on top of the fighting and then the emotional trauma of Sophie walking out on Nate, it was taking its toll on both Eliot and the team as a whole.

The emotional turmoil that existed between brothers was one thing too many on the scales Eliot was trying to balance in his life right now.

“I’m sorry,” said his twin, apparently with sincerity, though sometimes it was hard to tell since the guy trained as a lawyer in the worst sense of the word.

“Sorry for what, Lindsey?!” Eliot exploded then. “Sorry you’re here when I’m having a crap ass day? Sorry you let me think you were dead for five years?!” he tried, smacking one hand into the other with more force than even he meant to as he lost his temper. “Or are you just sorry I ever tried to find you, huh?”

No answer to any of his questions was going to help, both Eliot and Lindsey knew that. Still, the older of the twins had to give his explanation, a reason for his behaviour, some kind of apology or recompense.

“You know I wouldn’t let you believe I was dead unless I had to, El,” he told his back, since apparently his brother was too mad to even look at him right now. “Okay, I had to make a choice that day, the biggest of my life,” he explained. “If I lived, if the Senior Partners and Angel and everybody knew I survived...” He shook his head. “The world had to think Lindsey McDonald was dead.”

A hollow laugh left Eliot’s lips then at the sound of the name around which his brother built a career. He never had quite figured out if Lindsey used their mothers maiden name to hide his family’s shame or his own. Once or twice he thought about asking which reason was true. Should his fancy lawyer friends not be allowed to realise he was a Spencer, from a large and poor family that could barely scrape by on the little money they had, or was he afraid of that same group of lowly but innocent people getting linked to the evil of the firm he joined right out of college, the much feared Wolfram & Hart?

“Well, congratulations,” said Eliot at length as he whirled around to face his brother at last. “You did a good job, Linds, ‘cause you had me fooled - your own Goddamn brother thought you were dead,” he said coldly, the pain evident in his eyes as he gazed across at his double.

Parker had been right in her description. To all intents and purposes, they were identical, though Eliot was more muscular and had let his hair grow longer and more unruly. Lindsey never lost that habit of trying to look clean cut, even though he had presumably been living underground and out of sight for the better part of five years. From a distance, one could easily be mistaken for the other, no doubt about it, which was how Eliot had known his dear brother was alive in the first place, thanks to Parker and her spotting Lindsey more than two months ago.

“Eliot?” her voice beyond the door was heard as she let herself into his apartment.

“Talk of the devil...” the hitter muttered, wondering how the hell he was supposed to handle this now.

“And here was me thinkin’ that was how you referred to me,” Lindsey half-joked, his eyes following Eliot’s to the door as a blonde woman appeared there.

She gasped at the sight of what looked like two Eliots to her, then grinned wide as she realised who she was seeing. She had met twins before, when she was in the system. Poor kids never did get adopted too easily when there were two that must go together. Still, the sight of two identical beings like this never failed to amaze Parker. The fact that they were a matching pair of someone she knew made it all the more fascinating.

“Parker...” Eliot began, but she didn’t respond, barely glanced at him at first as she walked right by him and stepped up close to Lindsey.

She studied every detail of his face, apparently as amazed by his similarity to Eliot as a child might be by their own reflection. For his part, Lindsey didn’t look bothered by it. He’d known much stranger people in his time than Parker, or so he would think til he got to know her better, Eliot figured.

“You’re not actually identical,” she declared looking from Lindsey to Eliot then who she peered at over her shoulder. “And it’s not just the hair and the scars.” she told him before he said it, though she didn’t seem willing to explain exactly what the difference was that she was seeing if not those things.

“Your people know about me?” asked Lindsey, not sure if he was pleased about that or not.

Certainly it seemed this Parker person was aware, and not shocked to see him alive. It seemed Eliot was proving once again not to be as dumb as some folks would assume. He must have known this whole time Lindsey wasn’t really dead, else how would Parker know?

“No.” The hitter shook his head then, reaching out a hand to Parker’s arm and encouraging her to come away, out of his brother’s personal space. “The team don’t know anything. Parker only knows you exist because she saw you a while back and thought you were me.”

“Only at a distance.” She shrugged. “Close up I’d know for sure.”

“I’m sure you would” said Lindsey with a look that confused her.

Eliot growled deep in his chest.

“Parker, what are you doin’ here?” he asked her, a little more Southern than his usual voice, she noticed.

“I wanted to work on my take down,” she admitted, “but if you’re spending time with your brother-”

“Lindsey was just leavin’,” said Eliot coldly.

It wasn’t as if his brother really expected anything else. Sure, he had come here when he heard rumour that El was looking for him, but he never really thought for a moment he’d want to sit down and chat about old times or anything. They really hadn’t gotten along at all well since their career choices put them at odds. A pair of Black Knights on the chess board of life ought to be better friends, especially when they were not just brothers but twins. Unfortunately, evil came in many forms, and Lindsey’s craving for power at any cost left a bad taste in Eliot’s mouth, despite his own less-than-pure acts in the past.

“Sure, I’ll go,” said Lindsey, pushing his shorter hair off his face as he headed for the door.

Sparing Parker a glance, he smiled in such a way as to remind her of a crocodile, leaving her wondering if he had plans to befriend her or just swallow her whole.

“It was nice meeting you, Parker,” he said pointedly as his eyes shifted to his brother, making if too clear that he would remember the name.

Eliot dared him with his eyes to try to mess with his team, his friends, the family he had built that was so much moor reliable than the blood brother he was looking at now. Still, Lindsey appeared unmoved as he headed for the door, throwing his parting shot over his shoulder as he went;

“I’m sure I’ll see you around, little brother.”

Parker looked from the door that closed behind Lindsey to Eliot on her other side, the hitter’s eyes narrowing in a way she knew too well. Apparently his twin could make him just as angry as innocents being screwed over or Hardison talking geek-speak incessantly in his ear. Either way, it was not a good sign.

“How can you hate your brother?” she asked, head cocked to one side as she observed him. “Aren’t you supposed to love him?”

Eliot’s eyes shifted to meet her own then, a little of the anger dissipating. None of this was her fault, for a change, and she didn’t deserve the wrath he’d like to release on Lindsey.

“Love and hate walk a fine line, darlin’,” he told her, apparently from experience.

Parker opened her mouth to ask another question, but stopped when Eliot shook his head. She wasn’t sure if it was a request for her not to speak to him anymore, or if he was just trying to shake off some of the rage that was evidently bubbling inside him. She was never afraid when he got angry, but had learnt that a hasty retreat often worked best when he started to lose his temper that way. It had taken months for her to realise it, but she knew it now, mostly thanks to Sophie’s tutelage. Something inside her chest tightened when she remembered Sophie was gone, for now anyway, and she felt sick.

“It doesn’t feel good when people you care about walk out,” she said flatly, with a haunted look in her eyes that Eliot couldn’t quite read.

“I’m not going anywhere, Parker,” he assured. “At least, I’m not plannin’ on it any time soon.”

That brought a smile back to her face, but Eliot couldn’t so easily get over himself. Sometimes he envied the way the thief could seemingly turn emotions on and off like she had a switch installed. Keeping control was so much harder for the hitter, especially where his past and his brother were concerned.

“So, we can train now?” she checked, apparently unphased by anything that had happened here tonight.

Eliot opened his mouth to answer her but then closed it again just as fast. He wanted to help her when she asked, since she didn’t ask often. He kind of like that she was eager to learn self-defence and all, but right now he couldn’t do it. He was holding onto so much anger by the slightest thread. Parker with her quirky ways might just tip him over the edge, through no real fault of her own, and the idea of hurting her, however accidentally in the heat of the moment, make Eliot feel sick to his stomach.

“No, not tonight, Parker,” he told her as he turned away, wishing she would just leave so that it wouldn’t matter what he said or did next.

Unfortunately, she really wasn’t built like everyone else, not knowing when was a good time to give up and go. She was determined and stubborn, perhaps as much if not more so than Eliot himself. Usually he admired that, sometimes it bugged him, right now it was about to drive him to distraction.

“But, I-”

“I said no!” he boomed at her, the moment she opened her mouth to protest.

There was a moments silence; he never tuned around and therefore missed the odd mixture of indigence and pain in her eyes. Eliot so wished she had never come here tonight.

The next instant when he dared to glance behind him, she was gone. Out the door, out the window, he honestly wasn’t sure. Gone just like Lindsey, leaving him alone again. It was what Eliot had wanted, so an explanation as to why he was smashing up his own home the very next moment might be complicated to find. It was a good thing perhaps that there was nobody there to ask for it.

* * *

Parker was angry and upset and she hated feeling that way. She didn’t cry about it, hardly ever did that, because she had grown immune to a lot over the years. Insults and mean looks, accusations and all. From a child, she hadn’t exactly been treated with love and care so she didn’t actually expect it, but she had thought things were different with the team, even with Eliot. Sure, he came off all big and brutish sometimes, scary and growly to some people, but he was always okay with Parker. He called her crazy, but she knew he never really meant to be mean. If he hated her so much he wouldn’t be teaching her self-defence or letting her in on the secret about his brother.

“It’s not like I even care about his stupid family,” she muttered to herself as she tramped down the fire escape on the side of Eliot’s building. “Who wants a person who looks exactly like them hanging around anyway?” She shrugged.

“Well, neither of us exactly asked to be a twin,” said a voice in the dark, so suddenly she was almost startled, almost.

“Even I know that’s not how it works.” Parker rolled her eyes as she cleared the bottom step and looked on down the alley to where Lindsey stood leaning with his back against the wall, watching her. “So, how come you’re here?” she asked him as he stepped out of the shadows and met her in the middle of the only patch of light made by the moon shining between the two buildings.

“I heard El was looking for me.” He shrugged, thumbs in his pockets. “Thought I’d let him know I’m okay.”

Parker stared at him in such a way that might’ve been unnerving, but then she didn’t know the things Lindsey had already seen in his life. Nothing unnerved him anymore, least of all cute blondes in dark alleys.

“He thought you were dead,” she said straight out, just like Parker said everything. “That’s weird, right? I mean, I know people fake their own deaths and stuff but you don’t do that without a reason, do you?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure herself if what she was saying was correct.

“I guess not,” Lindsey agreed, not moving his feet even as she walked around him, as if she were stalking prey only somehow not as threatening as that.

It was more like a child trying to figure out a puzzle, in the strangest way.

“So, what’s your reason?” she asked as she returned to his line of sight.

“Well, that’s a pretty big question comin’ from a woman I just met ten minutes ago,” said Lindsey with a smirk that wasn’t quite the same as Eliot’s that she knew so well. “How about you and me gettin’ to know each other a little better, Parker?" he suggested, reaching out to flip her hair over her shoulder for her, and leaning in a little. “Then maybe I’ll tell you the story of how me and dear brother El turned out so different.”

Parker smiled at that. Usually she was ‘stab first, ask questions later’ when guys made contact, but this was okay. Lindsey wasn’t Eliot, she was all aware of that, but the fact he looked like him was oddly comforting. Besides, he seemed nice enough, and he seemed to smile a lot more than his brother, which was no bad thing. Seemed he was also willing to tell her tales of his and Eliot’s youth that she could never squeeze out of the hitter himself, and it appealed to her to know things that the rest of the team didn’t that way. She nodded in answer to his question and they headed out of the alley side by side.

“You wanna see the bar where the team hang out?” she offered, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

“I don’t think Eliot would want me on his turf, sweetheart,” Lindsey reminded her and she turned to look at him with a frown.

“He’s not here.” She shrugged. “How would he know?”

The look on her companion’s face proved he wasn’t buying. Parker rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Fine, whatever,” she huffed. “There are other places,” she went on, grinning like a Cheshire Cat as she turned to look at him then, walking backwards as she asked with glee. “You like heights?”

_Several hours later..._

It wasn’t exactly how Lindsey MacDonald had expected to spend his evening. When he came to visit his brother, well, honestly, he had anticipated a fight, one way or the other, and that he had got. Eliot got angry pretty easily. Learning that his twin brother had lied about his own death all this time, that was always going to produce fireworks, but Lindsey had hoped that after a while they’d at last be able to talk. Despite appearances, he did love his brother, he couldn’t help it even if he wanted to. He had also missed him and hoped that somehow they could build bridges here, at least before the worst happened and one of them really did wind up dead.

On the upside, Lindsey had made a friend today. Parker was possibly the craziest woman he ever met in his life, or one of them, and he’d known a few in his time, one way and another. He’d never been on a date to the top of a random fifty storey building before, and that was the truth, but the view was fantastic and sat there beside him with her hair blowing in the breeze and a huge grin on her face, his companion couldn’t have looked more beautiful, he was sure. Of course, he had long since had a weakness for blondes.

“Y’know, this reminds me of home.” Lindsey sighed, leaning back on his elbows beside Parker who copied the position. “Not the city and all, obviously,” he explained, “but the feelin’, like freedom. I don’t get that too often these days.”

The thief beside him made no comment. Honestly, she didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She lived for freedom, for the exhilaration of free falling and the thrill of almost getting caught. People said her life was dangerous in more ways than one, but that never bothered her. She had been through so much and come out the other side. Now, Parker firmly believed there was nothing she couldn’t handle, especially with her team around her.

It seemed Lindsey had no team, no family but Eliot who he hadn’t seen for years. As she stared at him in profile, sipping his beer from the bottle, she saw someone so different to the team’s hitter in so many ways, despite the fact they looked almost identical in actual looks. Both were sad, for reasons Parker wasn’t sure she would ever fully grasp, but Lindsey was also lost and alone. Eliot didn’t have to worry about that, he couldn’t ever get rid of the team, even though she thought he’d like to sometimes. His brother had nobody to turn to, and Parker could relate.

“Gotta say, I’m flattered,” he said suddenly, almost succeeding in startling her as he turned his head to look at her. “A view like this and you’d rather be starin’ at me?” He smirked.

Parker shrugged like it was nothing, because it really didn’t matter to her.

“I’ve seen the view before,” she told him, turning on a dime the very next second as she sat up cross-legged and asked him what was on her mind. “Do you miss before?” she asked. “When you and Eliot were young?”

The question seemed to take a lot of thought to process, and a lot of breath too if the heavy sigh that came out of Lindsey as he flopped flat on his back on the concrete was anything to go by.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, staring up at the stars with his hands behind his head. “I mean, me and El, when we were kids, it was fun, y’know? Always had someone to watch my back, a partner in crime.” He smirked at what he seemed to find funny in that but Parker clearly didn’t get it. “I dunno, I guess everybody thinks going back to their childhood would be easier sometimes.” He shrugged awkwardly against the ground. “What was your past like?” he asked Parker then, having heard little or nothing on the subject so far.

“Dark,” came her softly spoken answer, eyes trained on the view then and never shifting. “Mostly messy and... dark,” she repeated, shaking herself out of a trance a moment before his hand made contact with her leg, the only part of her he could reach as they sat now.

She looked back at him, like a deer in headlights and he couldn’t make it out. She was this strong, confident young woman, she dealt with his brother without flinching so she couldn’t exactly be the shy, scared type. Still, any time he came close to touching her tonight she had recoiled like he burned her.

Lindsey couldn’t blame Parker for that, there was no telling what Eliot might’ve said about him before he got here, and even if he said nothing at all, strangers were always something to be wary of, no matter how nice they seemed. People like them, they learnt the hard way who to trust and who to bury, many more were the latter rather than the former.

It wasn’t clear to either of them what was different about each other. Perhaps she was comforted by the fact he looked familiar, but then she made a point more than once in the past few hours that he and Eliot were not the same, not even perfectly so in looks. Of course, she was not dissimilar to women he had known before, though she seemed not as dangerous up to now. Lindsey wasn’t sure whether to change his mind on that when suddenly she was sitting on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

“You’re not Eliot,” she said then, as if only just realising it.

“Pretty sure we established that a few hours... and a few bottles ago,” he said with a smirk as he gestured to the line of empties that sat alongside them.

He had nothing to complain about right now, straddled by a gorgeous blonde that he was happy to know better, and was pretty sure he could easily fend off if her intentions were less amorous and more dangerous.

“You are different,” she repeated, her hand reaching out as if to touch his face but never quite making contact, “I can tell.”

“Yeah, you never did explain that to me,” he reminded her with a shake of his head, still wondering what the big difference between him and Eliot was that she seemed to spot so easily just by looking.

Sure, right here and now, they had slightly different hair and all, but she wasn’t looking at that. Her eyes were locked on his face, perhaps even on his own baby blues as she leaned over him.

“Different, but not in a bad way,” she told him, unwilling to give any better explanation apparently as she pushed her lips against his. “Sophie says that grifters and thieves are like magicians, they never reveal their tricks to the public,” she told him a second later when she broke the kiss that almost blew his mind - hell, it’d been way too long.

“I’m not the public, sweetheart,” he told her as he opened his eyes, barely aware he’d allowed them to fall shut when she made her move. “We’re friends, right?”

Parker seemed to think about that for a long painful moment, before kissing him again. She hadn’t actually answered his question, but Lindsey ceased to care as he pulled her body down on top of his and let himself get lost in the passion. 

“I don’t normally do this,” Parker said aloud, though she wasn’t sure that she’d meant to.

It was true enough, she really wasn’t one for throwing herself at guys as a general rule. She’d had sex before, obviously, but there were few men that had ever sparked enough of a yearning in her to make her do this. Lindsey was different, just like she said, different from Eliot and from anyone else she’d met in a very long time. She wanted to do this, and it seemed he wasn’t about to argue, which pleased her.

“Kinda out of practise myself,” he said from beneath her, between kisses and unfastening of buttons that couldn’t be fast enough, “but I think I remember how it works,” he chuckled as she smiled against his lips.

“Cool,” she said in reply, then words no longer held meaning, and the whole world faded away.

Two people who believed in taking what they wanted, getting what they craved, no matter the cost, it ought to be perfect. Still, in the morning, she would be gone without a word, and he would wake up alone but without a regret or a care.

This was a flying visit, it was all Lindsey really intended, even if his brother had welcomed him with open arms, and he’d known from the beginning it was unlikely.

Parker wouldn’t ever speak a word of what she did with Eliot’s brother that night, not because she was ashamed and certainly not because she believed in privacy. She had promised not to mention Lindsey to the team, and it seemed Eliot wasn’t about to mention his twin’s surprise visit. She kept her lips sealed and did what he did, acted like Lindsey had never been there at all, but she wasn’t about to forget, not for a second.


	3. III. My Brother’s Keeper

Eliot tried not to react to the unknown number flashing on his cell phone. It could easily be a wrong number or something, but he really didn’t like surprises, which was why the shock underwhelmed him when he accepted the call bluntly.

“Go,” he said, figuring if it was anyone who knew him or wanted to speak to him, they would know they had the right person.

“I need help,” came the response in a voice he knew too well. “You know I wouldn’t call if I wasn’t desperate, El.”

His breathing was off, and Eliot knew it, even down the crackling line that barely held true. If he had to guess, he’d say stab would, maybe not quite punctured the lung but it wasn’t good. There was a very distinctive wheeze before Lindsey spoke again.

“C’mon, bro,” he urged his twin, “I can’t-”

“Text me an amount and a place,” he said snippily. “I’ll wire what you need,” he promised.

Sure, he didn’t like his brother much, but if he could save his life he would. Eliot was a born protector, always had been deep down. That was part of the reason why he and Lindsey had fallen out so easily. Getting mixed up with that law firm, Wolfram and Hart, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Eliot could quantify his fighting, even killing, make it okay if he was mostly hurting bad guys. Lindsey stood shoulder to shoulder with the most corrupt law firm in the known world, and he did it with a smile on his face. That was what Eliot couldn’t handle, the black magicks, the pure evil. It was beyond anything he was willing to get mixed up in and he begged his brother to walk away, more than once. It never quite happened, and now they both had to pay the price. Eliot lost his brother in almost every sense of the word, and Lindsey lost everything else as well.

Ending his call before Lindsey had barely finished saying ‘thanks’, Eliot threw his cell into the armchair and turned away, his hand to his forehead as he fought to breathe. He was so angry, not just at Lindsey for the danger he kept putting himself in, but also at himself for not being more willing to stand by him. He kept thinking if he’d just tried harder, he could’ve saved his twin before things got this far, before he got to the point of faking his own death and then running for his life indefinitely from some of the worst evil the world had ever known.

Steeling himself against his own emotions and forcing himself to focus, Eliot was soon pulling on his jacket and preparing to head to Nate’s for the next briefing. His brother was almost completely beyond saving, but there were others who could use his help, that stood a chance of getting real justice and living some kind of decent life. If he could help, he would, always.

* * *

Parker wasn’t sure what to think when she caught Eliot on the phone, talking about wiring money. Surely that was the kind of thing the team had Hardison do for a job and the topic hadn’t even come up in the briefing, yet here Eliot was in the alley behind McRorys getting mad because some transfer of funds was not going as smooth as he wanted. Parker honestly thought he was going to crush his cell to dust in his bare hands when he ended the call and turned away, coming face to face with the little blonde that had been hovering behind him.

“What the hell are you doin’, Parker?” he yelled at her, immediately regretting it when she reeled back in surprise.

“I was heading home, and then I heard you getting mad with whoever you were calling.” She shrugged innocently, though Parker was usually anything but. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” Eliot told her, an abject lie and they both knew it. “It will be fine, I just gotta figure this out,” he said as he pushed various buttons on his cell.

“Well,” said Parker carefully, mindful of making him mad again, “if it’s a money transfer, couldn’t Hardison-” 

“I don’t want Hardison involved in my business!” he snapped again, getting mad at himself for getting mad at her now and feeling all the worse about it. “I gotta get out of here,” he declared then, deciding it would be best for everybody if he just was alone for a while.

Unfortunately, Parker wasn’t much for understanding alone time unless it was she herself who needed it. She followed Eliot out of the alley and into the street without missing a step.

“It’s Lindsey,” she said, causing the hitter to whirl round to face her, “isn’t it?”

She was so much smarter than she was ever given credit for, Eliot knew. Even he had been known to underestimate the little thief, as he was assumed to be a fool himself. The two of them were quite the pair, and that word could certainly be applied to them these days. They got sent on jobs together more often than they didn’t of late, and had spent enough time together. She knew his secrets, or at least the major one that the rest of the team was oblivious to. The fact he had a twin brother. Of course, he had never been mentioned by either Eliot or Parker since that day almost a year ago now when Lindsey had first come to town.

“I’m not talkin’ to you about this, Parker,” said Eliot, as calmly and quietly as he could. “I don’t wanna fight with ya, darlin’, I really don’t, so I’m gonna walk away, and we won’t ever mention this again, okay?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and walked away then leaving Parker stood alone in the street her hand going absently to the pendant that hung around her neck. Nobody noticed she had it, or if they did, they never bothered to ask where it had come from. Parker guessed they thought she stole it and didn’t want to be an accessory after the event by finding out where from. The truth was, even she didn’t know where it had come from exactly. She found it one day, hanging by the door of her warehouse, the silver chain sparkling in the moonlight. The large sized pendant had a black and red swirling stone set in the centre, and Parker was sure when she looked into it she saw more than just the usual colours and facets of a gemstone. It puzzled her that she could not identify the rock, since that had never happened before, but the note that fell from a hiding place the moment she unhooked the necklace from its perch explained all.

‘Dark and messy can be beautiful too.’

Immediately Parker had recalled her conversation with Lindsey, high on the roof that night they first met, before they forgot about words and lost themselves in a passion the kind of which she rarely felt the need to indulge in. She had smiled when she realised who her ‘secret admirer’ was, but then immediately frowned at the idea he knew where she lived. Perhaps Eliot told him, though that didn’t seem right somehow. She never asked him, never dared, just wore her necklace and soon forgot to worry about how Lindsey could always find her no matter where she went.

On jobs to faraway places she travelled, and Lindsey turned up in the darndest places. Four times in the first six months since meeting him, but for a long time now she hadn’t heard a word. Eliot wasn’t supposed to know they met up and the team didn’t even realise the guy existed. Parker kept her secret all to herself, like so many others before. The difference was that this particular secret was a happy one, where so many others of hers were not.

It was a strange sort of relationship, based on a connection that neither could explain and explosive sex that was perhaps even more complicated to quantify. They never tried to analyse it, only enjoyed the moments they shared and never spoke of them to another living soul. That was the deal, and it worked, until now.

If Lindsey was contacting Eliot for money then things were bad. All the tales he’d told, memories from the past and after, Lindsey lived alone and by his wits for years now. He and Eliot had grown apart, for reasons he never would properly explain to her, but that was okay. There were things she’d rather not have Lindsey know about her past too, things she’d rather nobody ever knew. All Parker knew was she cared what happened to Lindsey, and if Eliot wouldn’t let her help through him than she would have to find her own way. She could ask Hardison how to find people, she never had to give him the name of the person she wanted to locate. It could be okay.

* * *

Parker was exhausted. She didn’t often get to such a state of tiredness, thanks to sugar rushes and an innate ability to just keep on going and going. Eliot called her the ‘frickin’ Energiser bunny’ half the time, but today was different.

The job had drained her. Stealing cars was child play, but reliving that part of her life, especially through Josie, had done her no good at all. Nightmares and sleepless nights she could handle once in a while, but three nights in a row was just too many. Besides, even when she was trying to forget about all that, her mind fogged up with other things, specifically another person and the trouble he might be in.

She had made all kinds of attempts to find Lindsey, to make sure he was okay, but to no avail. She wanted to ask Eliot if he had heard any more, if things were okay now, but he was just so angry about the whole thing to start off with. After the job, well, given the state of him, even Parker knew now wasn’t a good time to make an approach. Busted ribs and a black eye were the least of his worries, Nate said he must have a concussion and was lucky if pneumonia didn’t creep up on him after his dip into the docks. Right in this moment, Parker couldn’t decide whether to feel worse for the hitter, his twin, or herself.

A few steps from the front door of the apartment building, the second of three places Parker used in Boston, she felt movement behind her and stopped. Even in her complete state of tiredness, the hyper-aware thief knew she was no longer alone, though she suspected she was too late to stop an attack if that’s what was coming.

“Hello, sweetheart,” said a voice she knew, and there was a grin on her face a mile wide as she turned around and saw him standing there.

Without a thought in her head, she launched herself into his arms and held on tight, the weight of her body light as a feather but so sudden she almost sent him sprawling. Parker righted herself just as soon as she realised she had almost knocked him over, though it never occurred to her to apologise.

“I’m so glad you’re not dead,” she declared seriously, causing Lindsey to chuckle.

“Not sorry about that myself,” he agreed. “’Course if I hang around here too long, might be a different story,” he said, even now checking over his shoulder as if he expected immediate attack.

“Then why are you here?” she asked with a serious frown. “To see Eliot?”

“No, only to see you.” He smiled. “I knew you were looking for me, I didn’t want a frown on that pretty face o’ yours too long,” he said with a smile she clearly found infectious.

“You knew?” She was surprised by that. “How?”

“Same way I always know how to find you, no matter where you are.” Lindsey shrugged. “Magic,” he told her with a grin.

Parker laughed openly at the very suggestion of it.

“Magic?” she scoffed. “You still think I believe you when you tell me that?” She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am, I do,” he said as he produced a beautiful flower from behind his back.

It wasn’t the first time he’d told her he could do magic, or proved the point as he did then. Usually Parker could see from a mile away how such tricks were done, knew exactly where the object was hidden or the trapdoor was set. She saw through every magician she had ever seen take to the stage or approach her in the street. Lindsey was the first to fool her.

She plucked the flower from his hand and walked a full circle around him, wondering the entire time how he’d managed this. She had been wrapped around his body just moments before, this flower, no matter where it was hidden, would have been crushed, and yet it was perfect. She didn’t understand, she never did when he pulled such tricks.

“I will figure it out,” she told him as she faced him once again, thought the smirk on his face that was spookily like Eliot’s own said otherwise. “You wanna come inside?” she asked then, gesturing towards the building with the flower that was still in her hand.

“I can’t stay, babe,” Lindsey told her regretfully, looking back the way he’d come, into the dark night that always swallowed him up when he walked away from her. “If certain people knew I was here...”

“Okay,” she replied, pushing herself into him the moment he looked back at her, crushing her lips to his.

She kissed him long and hard, a supposed goodbye until the next time, though she probably didn’t realise she was making it harder for him to leave, so much harder.

“On the other hand,” he gasped in air when they parted later, “some things are worth the risk,” he told her with a genuine smile.

Parker was giggling like a kid as she dragged him inside.

* * *

Eliot wasn’t happy. As if it weren’t bad enough that he’d been beaten up, shot at, and knocked off a pier into icy water, now he had a bucket load of guilt sloshing around inside him too. Parker was a good girl, for a thief anyway. She never meant to hurt anybody’s feelings, that was for sure. Last week he’d really laid into her over the whole business with Lindsey, and it had shown in her manner towards him and even in her work on the job that she was upset still. The hitter kept on telling himself he had nothing to apologise for, but that was a lie. He hated that he hurt her when none of this was her fault, and when the con was over it hit him just how much damage he’d done. She was always the first to offer him help to get home or to deal with his injuries, even if he did always bark at her for trying to be nice. Yesterday, like all the days before, she had gone out of her way to avoid him, and it was that more than the fear of concussion-related comas that kept him awake last night.

Now he was here on the doorstep to her apartment, the one he probably wasn’t supposed to know about but did anyway. He had to make things right with her, and it couldn’t be in front of the team. Lindsey was going to come up in this conversation and the less people that knew of the existence of Eliot’s twin, the better he liked it. Knocking on the door, he also called Parker’s name, mindful of the fact she didn’t like strangers and might not answer to just anyone.

In the bedroom, Parker sat up fast, alongside Lindsey who also stirred suddenly at the sound of knocking and his brother’s voice. Swearing under his breath, he saw the sun shining bright through the window and knew he was a fool for staying so long. It had been late when he got there and after spending most of what remained of the dark hours in passions grasp, it was hardly surprising that he had missed his window of opportunity to escape. Now he was going to be in serious trouble if he didn’t get out and fast, and it wasn’t just Eliot out to get him.

“Babe, he can’t find me here,” said Lindsey in whispered explanation as he pulled on his clothes. “And he’s not the only one.”

“Okay.” Parker nodded as she dressed herself, not showing any particular kind of emotion as usual, even though something was bubbling inside her that felt a lot like disappointment.

“I probably shouldn’t come back here again,” he told her as he buttoned his shirt fast and threw on his jacket, opening up the window and checking the drop wasn’t too far, “but if you want to-”

“Top of the Empire State Building,” she blurted out, completely off the top of her head apparently and he frowned not understanding where such a random thought had come from. “I saw it in a movie.” She shrugged. “It’s romantic, right?” she checked, as if genuinely unsure.

“Yeah, sure.” Lindsey nodded. “But it might be a while, sweetheart,” he said sadly as she approached him, physically wincing as he heard Eliot call her name again.

“Be right there!” she yelled back, though her eyes remained on his brother. “Midnight on this day, one year from now,” she said simply, “that’s what they said in the movie,” she told him, planting a kiss on his lips even as he sat now, one leg in and one out of the window. “Don’t die before then,” she told him seriously.

“I’m not plannin’ on it,” he promised, and then was gone from sight in an instant.

Parker felt strangely flustered, which she was not used to, as she turned from the now empty window to the sound of Eliot calling her name. They didn’t sound exactly the same, him and Lindsey, much like they didn’t look exactly the same, despite being twins. She never had explained the differences she saw to either of them, though Lindsey had asked. Eliot hadn’t and never would, since he didn’t have a clue how close Parker and his brother had become. She didn’t intend to tell him either, he’d only be mad and that was no fun.

Pushing her hair back out of her face, the blonde thief opened the front door with a sigh.

“I was in bed,” she said honestly, not bothering to elaborate. “What do you want?”

Eliot stared at her a long moment, as if trying to figure out what was weird here. Something definitely was, he knew that much. Sure, if Parker had been in bed that would explained why her hair was messed up and her top was on backwards, but somehow he figured there was more to it than that. She didn’t seem to notice he was staring, probably because she thought he was just trying to gain focus through one good eye. He really had taken a beating yesterday.

“I, er... I wanted to talk to you, about before,” he said eventually, following her into the apartment when she moved.

“Before, when?” she frowned some as she parked herself cross-legged on the couch and he moved towards the armchair.

“Parker, you know what I...” he began, never quite making it to sitting down.

Something caught his eye, a metal object glinting in the light from the window. Women didn’t wear belts that thick or own buckles of that size, at least, he knew Parker didn’t. Sure, it could be something she’d stolen for kicks, could even be she’d had a guy here. Of course, Eliot could’ve gotten over all that if he didn’t recognise the buckle all too well.

“Uh, yeah,” Parker floundered a little as she watched Eliot pick up the belt by the buckle end and study it. “So, that’s-”

“Lindsey’s belt,” he filled in for her, his tone still even but with an underlying current of steel that made all the hairs on the back of thief’s neck stand on end. “Don’t tell me it’s not, Parker,” he said, eyes narrowing as they peered out at her around his hair. “My Mom bought the damn buckle for him, I have one just the same,” he told her, anger rising though he did his best to keep a hold on his temper. “Is he still here?” he asked her.

“No.” She shook her head, and though he wanted to believe her, his eyes betrayed him, straying to the bedroom door over her head. “Eliot, he’s not,” she insisted.

“But he was.” Eliot nodded, already knowing it was true and feeling sick to his stomach just knowing it. “You slept with him? Did you sleep with him?!” he demanded to know, exploding as she knew he was going to from the start, though she still winced when it happened.

“Yes, I had sex with him!” she yelled up from her place sat on the couch, getting upset and as mad as he was at being made to feel like a kid again, being looked down on by some foster father who didn’t want her around. “It’s none of your business. I don’t ask you about the people you have sex with! And I’m not having sex with you, so it’s none of your business!” she repeated her point as she scrambled to her feet, pulling herself up to her full height in defiance, even as tears formed in her eyes and showed her weakness.

Eliot felt worse for knowing he was making her feel so bad. She didn’t know, she couldn’t. Chances were good she thought of Lindsey as being just like Eliot, without some of the emotional baggage. The guy had a knack for forgetting he had a conscience these days, but then that was what happened when you sold your soul to the devil, or at least Wolfram & Hart. His intentions were pure, on the wrong side of the line maybe, but pure. He had nothing much he cared to hide because he felt no shame, he just didn’t care. Eliot wasn’t wired that way, but there was far too much to explain to Parker to have her truly understand. If he went down that road with her, there was no going back, and he honestly wasn’t sure how her and the team would take knowing the reality of the world they thought only existed in horror movies and spooky novels.

“Parker.” he sighed, dropping the belt into the chair, trying his damnedest to be calm, “Darlin’, you don’t understand,” he told her. “Lindsey is... he’s dangerous,” he begged her with his eyes to understand, even though he knew he was probably fighting a losing battle.

“Yeah, and so are you sometimes,” she pointed out, straight forward as ever, “but we all like you, and trust you.”

“That’s different,” he replied immediately, hearing her next question clear as a bell in his head before she ever actually asked it.

“How?”

Eliot fought for an explanation she would make sense of without freaking out, for a way to warn her off his twin without making matters worse.

“There is so much you don’t understand, darlin’,” he tried again. “Seriously, if you knew-”

“I can’t know what you won’t tell me,” she cut in, one of the few who would dare to do such a thing to Eliot Spencer, and fewer still who lived to tell the tale, “and I don’t wanna know anyway,” she said, happy to approach him now he wasn’t so very mad at her. “Lindsey told me everything I need to know, and it’s not like we’re gonna get married and live happily ever after like a fairytale, Eliot.” She rolled her eyes. “We have sex is all, and we talk. I like it.” She smiled a little smile that he might have found infectious at any other moment. “You know how many people I’ve had in my life that I can call a real friend? Someone who actually cares about me? I can pretty much count them on one hand... maybe one and a half,” she amended as she realised there were four people in her team alone these days.

“I thought we were friends,” he said, almost too softly to be himself, and that only made Parker smile wider as she laced and unlaced her fingers in front of her.

“We are,” she said, lightly punching him in the shoulder, the one she knew wasn’t so badly injured, “but we’d be better friends if you stopped yelling like you’re my dad and just accepted that my life is my own,” she told him straight. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to see Lindsey again, not for a long time,” she said, a little sadness creeping into her almost-lie as she played with the pendant that hung around her neck.

Eliot hadn’t really noticed she was wearing it til just then. He’d seen it before and not thought much of it, but now it had his attention and something inside his brain screamed at him that it was wrong. Parker was like a magpie, she stole shiny expensive jewels and gems, mostly diamonds and such. This was a big stone but firly plain, swirls of black and red that weren’t really her style.

“Did he give you that?” he asked, the ‘he’ in the question all too obvious and unpleasant.

“Maybe.” Parker squirmed. “Okay, yes,” she told him with a further roll of her eyes.

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on that had nothing to do with concussion or similar.

“Sweetheart, I just really don’t want you to get hurt here,” he told her at length, as Parker tucked the pendant inside her clothes.

“Then let it go, Eliot, please,” she urged him, really not wanting to ruin her friendship with him or make any kind of promise to give up her strange relationship with Lindsey just yet. “I’m stronger than you think,” she reminded her friend, glad to see him smile at last.

“Yeah, I know.” He nodded, putting a careful hand to her hair a moment.

She smiled back, wide and genuine, and Eliot just knew that she expected everything to be forgotten and normal again now. It was the way Parker operated; deal with the problem, figure it out, move on. He only hoped she really was as strong as she thought she was, as able to deal if things got bad. More than that, Eliot hoped that it was so long before Lindsey tried to find her again that he failed to do so, that’d make him happiest of all, though he doubted it were possible if she kept that necklace.

“Okay, so... you wanna make me breakfast?” she asked with a cheeky grin and a childish clap of her hands.

Eliot opened his mouth to protest and then changed his mind.

“Yeah, sure,” he agreed, following her through to the kitchen.

Eliot still wasn’t happy with this whole situation, though he had no choice but to go along with it. If he told Parker the truth about the world, about what Lindsey was and what he was mixed up in, it’d be too much, and he knew it. He just had to hope he’d be there to save his little thief if the worst happened, just like always.


	4. IV. Brothers In Arms

Eliot woke up fast from a nightmare even he could no longer stand. A man who had been through as much as the hitter had ought not to be afraid of simple pictures conjured by his mind, but it was these experiences that could make a bad dream so vivid and frightening to stay inside of.

Sitting up in bed, he pushed his hair from his eyes, encountering sweat that rolled down his face to his bare chest. Forcing himself to breathe evenly, Eliot was more mad at himself than anything else for allowing himself to get so worked up. Dreams were not always prophecies, though it had been known. Just because he hadn’t seen or heard from the team in almost a month did not mean they were in any kind of trouble.

After all that had been revealed about his connections to the evil Damien Moreau, Eliot couldn’t imagine Nate was really surprised when he told him he had to leave. As far as Eliot was concerned, it was for the good of the team as well as for himself. He didn’t expect them to trust him or want him around any more, even though they all made efforts to prove to him such feelings were unfounded. He felt like a traitor and like he didn’t belong, a usual set of feelings for a man in his position, but Eliot wasn’t prepared to stick around and make things any harder on himself.

The day he walked away from Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker, it was one of the hardest of his life, but he told himself it was for the best and got on that plane out of Boston, never to go back again.

Going back to his past role wasn’t really an option anymore, working for crime lords and bent tycoons. He’d spent so long working to bring these assholes down and that was what he wanted to continue to do. He didn’t need money but he did need to work, since being idle made his body itch for activity and his mind wander into dangerous territory far too often. He took jobs much like the Leverage team would, but a little simpler, a little more refined to his skill set and style. So far it was going well, but that didn’t mean that when he was alone, when the nightmares set in, he didn’t wish he could out-run his memories as easily as his old team.

Getting up out of bed, Eliot immediately sensed something was wrong. It wasn’t as if this apartment he’d bought was on the good side of town. He could afford so much better but in his line of work, it was advisable to stay low. He wouldn’t put it past some drugged up homeless guy to have broken in unnoticed whilst he suffered in his nightmare, but he was prepared for worse. Even from his prison cell below San Lorenzo, Eliot knew Moreau was capable of sending someone or something after him.

On his guard as he slipped out of the bedroom, a blade in his hand just in case, Eliot knew pretty fast that had no need to worry. He flipped on the light to find his brother huddled on the couch, drinking down whiskey like it was going out of style.

“Lindsey?” He was surprised to see him, though not exactly shocked that he was able to find him. “What the hell, man?” he asked, as he dropped his weapon and moved around the couch to better see his twin.

“Hey, El,” he said with fake cheerfulness that fell terribly flat when he winced at a pain shooting through his body. “It’ been a while,” he gasped out a moment later.

Looking at him, Eliot could see no obvious injuries on his brother’s body, but then he knew better than to presume that meant there were none. The state of him suggested Lindsey had quite literally been on the run for days. As much as he could hate the guy for things he both knew and presumed he’d done, he was still his brother, and as such Eliot could not competely cut him off, especially in a time of need.

“Talk to me, Linds,” he urged him. “C’mon, man, you gotta have a reason for bein’ here like this,” he said as he sat down beside him on the couch, pulling the whiskey bottle from his hand when he attempted to take another swig.

“You’re not gonna ask how I found ya first?” he slurred his words a little, maybe from the booze, maybe the pain he was clearly in, it was hard to tell.

“No.” Eliot shook his head, putting the bottle out of reach on the floor the other side of himself. “Even I use the odd locator spell,” he said grimly, hating that he ever allowed himself to resort to the smallest of magicks after the part they had played in corrupting his brother.

“Like you’d ever forget how.” Lindsey smirked in spite of the state he was in. “I never could figure out if that chick Kayla liked you or me better.”

Eliot didn’t dignify such a thing with an answer. It seemed like a million years ago when the two of them were still in high school, chasing skirt and willing to do just about anything to get past third base. Kayla was as dangerous as she was beautiful, and though people called her a witch, that was just a nasty label to most. In reality, she really was what they called her, with powers enough to entice the brothers Spencer to dabble in the dark arts just to make time with such a young woman as her. Maybe that was where it all started, though Eliot couldn’t be sure, and right now didn’t seem the time to dwell on it.

“Save me the trip down rose-tinted memory lane, Linds,” he urged him, an angry growl colouring every word. “You came here for a reason, and I’m guessin’ it’s not for a family reunion,” he said gruffly. “This is about one of two things; Parker or Wolfram & Hart. Which is it?” he asked straight out.

Lindsey couldn’t deny his brother had a point. He really couldn’t blame him for being so blunt with him either. Sometimes he wished they could go back to how things used to be, before he succumbed to the lure of money and power, allowing himself to sink further and further into the darkness to achieve his goal. Eliot was no saint, that much was frighteningly true, but he had some kind of moral compass that always managed to find north in the end. Lindsey felt like the needle on his own conscience had been spinning for years and never entirely settled.

“Parker told you about us, huh?” he asked, finding the blonde thief a safer topic than what he came here for right now. “That why you walked out on her and your Robin Hood team?” he asked bitterly.

Eliot bit his tongue to save from saying what he really wanted to. When he was sure he wasn’t going to verbally rip his brother a new one if he so much as opened his mouth he finally spoke.

“You don’t know her, Lindsey,” he told him. “Not really. Sex ain’t a relationship on it’s own,” he stopped when he realised his brother was laughing, a painful hollow sound, but laughter none the less.

“Y’know you almost sound jealous,” he challenged his brother with his words and a servere look to match his and his chuckling died in this throat instantly. “She wasn’t yours to lose El or she never would have gotten so close to me.”

“You don’t care about her, Lindsey, I know you don’t.” Eliot shook his head. “Okay, you like her, maybe. Like her for what you can get out of her, and ‘cause she’s a lost soul you thought she might understand you,” he sneered. “Newsflash, big brother, when you sell your soul to the devil, you don’t get to play soul-mates with the first girl who’ll screw ya since your last near-death experience.”

Lindsey’s eyes darkened at those words though his smirk remained.

“You really don’t think much of me, do ya, Eliot?” he asked rhetorically. “’Cause you’re such a righteous man, helping the helpless like some other phoney I used to know,” he challenged him, sitting up straighter than he had the entire time he’d been here. “Such a fine upstanding citizen, that’s what you wanna make pretend, but I know what you did,” he said, pointing an angry finger into his own chest. “Even after you found out what Moreau really was, you still worked for that thing!”

Eliot flinched just slightly at the accusation that he had no way to deny. The supposed man they called Damien Moreau was so much more evil than any human male could ever be, and he ought to have realised sooner that all that passion for power and love of pain meant he was something more, something worse. When he discovered it, he should’ve walked, but Lindsey was right in what he said. Eliot had stupidly stuck around, until things got just too much and he finally walked away. He let the psychotic, soulless animal they called Moreau continue to do what he did best; corrupt, injure, and destroy. It made him hardly any better than Lindsey in a lot of ways, and yet he couldn’t help himself when it came to judging his brother.

“I’m not perfect, far from it, and we both know that,” he said at length, “but that doesn’t let you off the hook with Parker. You had the mystical equivalent of a frickin’ tracker on her, Lindsey, and she didn’t even know!” he said angrily, the force of his fury bringing him to his feet and Lindsey wasn’t far behind.

“I needed to keep her safe!” he yelled, the pain inside him close to non-existent as adrenaline and the fire of the argument kept him standing. “After she got close to me... I had to know she was okay, and yeah, I wanted to see her too. You really think I can’t care about any person besides myself?” he asked, daring Eliot to say it with eyes and tone both.

Eliot never did answer the question, just shook his head eventually and looked away, trying to regain some measure of calm. Fighting over Parker was pointless right now, she was miles away and thankfully it seemed she hadn’t seen either brother in a good while. Before he left Boston, Eliot had asked if she knew where Lindsey was. She swore she didn’t, though she also told him it was none of his damn business if he didn’t even care enough to stick around either.

“Tell me you’re done with her and I might not throw you out of here on your ass,” he said simply, daring Lindsey to argue.

“I don’t think I get to make that choice or that promise.” Lindsey shook his head, smiling slightly as a memory played through his mind. “Y’know the last time I saw her, I told her I had to leave, could be gone months before I saw her again. She said to meet her at the top of Empire State, one year to the day.” He chuckled lightly. “Said she got it from some movie.”

“Sleepless in Seattle,” Eliot replied without thinking. “We watched it together, the whole team,” he recalled with both a smile and a heap of pain and regret too.

Poor Parker. For a thief who had lived so long in a world full of hardships and pain, she could be shockingly innocent and frighteningly naive sometimes. There was no point arguing this with Lindsey. If he lived through whatever crap was currently coming down on his head, he would want to go meet the little blonde that Eliot had once called a friend, and she could be potentially broken-hearted if he didn’t show, one more person letting her down in her life. Besides, whatever trouble his twin was in this time, Eliot knew he could not forsake him, even now after everything.

Lindsey coughed then, choking on thin air it seemed as one arm clutched at his torso. Something was very wrong here, and Eliot had a feeling it wasn’t even as simple as a regular bout of pneumonia or anything. Frowning as he watched his brother fall to the couch in convulsions, he reached out a moment later to move Lindsey’s shirt aside. Angry red lines marked out symbols that could only be bad news, scorched into his flesh like a red hot poker had been used to make them. In reality, it was unlikely anybody or anything had actually touched his skin.

“The Senior Partners never do give up.” Lindsey winced as the shocking pain subsided some and he glanced up to meet his brother’s eyes. “I guess they got busy a while with Angel and all, but now I seem to be Public Enemy No.1.”

If Wolfram and Hart wanted Lindsey dead, Eliot doubted there was much he could do. Throw an army of regular men at him, and he’d make it through. He could fight with guns, swords, his bare freakin’ hands if he had to, it made no difference. This was different, this was spells and magicks, demons and powers the like of which could literally rain hell down on Earth if they chose to make it so. Neither of them stood a chance of living through this, as far as Eliot could tell.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked anyway.

This was his brother, for crying out loud. No matter what he’d done, where he’d been, or who he’d pissed off, Eliot still loved Lindsey, just as he had from the day they were born. If they were going down, it was going to be together, come hell or high water, and they were likely going to have to face both now, and more besides.

* * *

Two days ago, Eliot didn’t think things could get much worse. Sat in the middle of a crudely drawn pentagram with his twin brother, the smells of black wax and unholy herbs assaulting his nose, he had hoped that was as bad as it would get, but he was so wrong. The only upside to conjuring up long forgotten magicks that Eliot had hoped never have to stumble over Latin for ever again, was that it had cured Lindsey of the inhuman disease that was ripping him apart from the inside out. Of course, it didn’t end there, and they both ought to have known it.

Wolfram and Hart had no enemies, because any and all were destroyed the very first chance they got. Nobody was supposed to stand up to them, and those that so much as tried were damned to pay the ultimate price. Angel and his band of merry men had been taken care of first, Lindsey had been certain of it, but now the Senior Partners were gunning for one of their own that had tried to use their knowledge and power against them. He was sentenced to suffer and ultimately die. The lawyer-turned-fighter was damned if he was going down any other way but kicking and screaming, and Eliot was not letting his twin brother take on such wrath alone.

The moment their healing spell was done, and both brothers had been flung to the floor on their backs, an unlikely earthquake had started up. The rumbling was so unusual for the state of Iowa that there was no doubt in either Lindsey or Eliot’s mind that they had caused this, that the dark powers that controlled Wolfram and Hart were very displeased to have their plans tampered with again.

They had done all that two humans against such a force could think to do; they ran. With no direction in mind and no shelter to seek, they just did their best to outrun the dark cloud that was ready to strike them down for good.

Two days of panic and darkness had culminated here, out in the wilderness where no reasonable man would ever venture. Hell was raining down on the Spencer brothers, quite literally, as demon foes and dark magick forces conspired to see Lindsey MacDonald brought down for the final time.

“This is insane!” Eliot yelled against the ungodly howling and lightning strikes. “We can’t out-run this anymore!” he said pointlessly, though his legs still pumped alongside his brothers, feet thudding hard against the ground.

“What choice do we have?!” Lindsey asked, wiping blood from his cheek, throwing his arms aloft a moment later, his puny attempt at fighting back lost amongst the onslaught against them.

Ducking behind a group of trees, they narrowly avoided the next blast that struck the ground, making the whole forest floor shake violently.

“I’m sorry, El!” his twin gasped, peeking out from their hiding place just as a further six demons appeared as if from nowhere.

“Don’t be sorry!” Eliot told him sternly. “Just be alive!”

Their eyes met as they both went for the swords at their belts and they appeared either side of the tree, battle-ready. Three demons each might’ve been easier if they hadn’t been awake and fighting for the better part of forty eight hours already, if the wooded area wasn’t growing in darkness every second, if Lindsey thought he actually had a life worth fighting for anymore. Glancing at his brother, he realised almost too late that the headless demon Eliot thought was dead was very much alive, and approaching him again from behind, axe swinging.

“Eliot!” he screamed, saving his twin's life with a fraction of a second to spare.

His relief at the survival of his brother was short lived when his own adversary took advantage of his lapse in attention. A powerful punch threw him back against a tree, as a bolt of green lightning flew down, passing clean through the fallen man’s body.

“Lindsey!” Eliot yelled just as his twin had done moments before in his own name.

He fought with new vigour against the demon before him and dispatched it with ease, turning to take on those that remained. Before he had a chance to fight anymore, the figures of the creatures wavered and then fell, disappearing in so much black vapour.

Without a thought in his head, Eliot ran to his brothers side, looking for any sign of life. He was breathing, only just, but he was, pulse so weak he could barely feel it at his wrist.

“C’mon, Linds, don’t do this to me now!” he begged, trying to pick his brother up and will some life into him.

No amount of prayers or pleading were going to help now, no healing spell or magick powers could save him, this Eliot knew as the sky cleared to blue above him. The war was over, the battle won. The Senior Partners had given up and gone because they knew this time they had succeeded - it was done.

Lindsey gasped a painful breath and forced his eyes open.

“El, I’m sorry,” he told his brother with the little voice he had left.

“I’m sorry too,” Eliot told him, tears falling unchecked from his eyes as he hugged his brother’s failing body closer.

“I thought... I could fix it... with you... and her,” he gasped out, painfully slowly, a couple of words all he could manage with each shallow breath.

“Don’t worry about that now,” said Eliot, battling to be strong enough to comfort him. “It’s okay.”

“Tell Darla... I’m sorry,” Lindsey said next, so softly Eliot almost mistook the name for another, but there was no question in his mind who his twin spoke of.

“Darla’s gone, Linds,” he reminded him. “You mean Parker?” he checked, the confusion in his brother’s dying moments not surprising.

An odd frown passed over Lindsey’s face then, perhaps a mixture of confusion and pain, Eliot couldn’t be sure and hadn’t the mind to worry on it.

“She... she wasn’t her,” his brother gasped out, eyes rolling around in his head as he lost control, consciousness, and life itself. “I’m... sorry.”

He was gone at last. Lindsey Spencer, who had masqueraded so long as Lindsey MacDonald, was now dead, utterly and completely with no turning back.

His brother Eliot held his body tight to him and looked up to the sky from which hell had rained down just minutes before. In frustration, anger, and pure gut-wrenching sadness, he screamed.


	5. V. Blood Brothers

Of all places in the world, this was perhaps the last that Eliot Spencer wanted to be. Technically, he had a choice, he could turn around right now and walk away, none of this could really be called his fault, but his feet wouldn’t turn, his heart wouldn’t allow it.

It was about a month ago that he heard the team had called it a day and split for good. A part of him wanted to be surprised, but he wasn’t entirely. They never had replaced him, hired a couple of different people for specific jobs but that was all. Eliot knew he was a fool to keep tabs, but he just couldn’t help himself, just as he couldn’t help but be here now, riding the elevator up to the top of the Empire State Building.

It was almost six months now since he had held his dying brother in his arms and watched him fade away. Six months since he screamed at a bright Iowa sky for the pain and torment it had rained down on them just moments before. Wolfram & Hart had their revenge, just as both Eliot and Lindsey ought to know they always would, it was just a matter of when. The time came, the moment passed, and now Eliot had to learn to live life without ever seeing his twin again, for the second time.

It was hard enough to deal with his own grief, but in that Eliot had no choice. Today he chose to put himself in a position where somebody else was going to suffer because of words he must say. Maybe it would have been better to stay away, to just let Parker believe that Lindsey didn’t care enough to show, but somehow that seemed more cruel The poor girl had been abandoned by everyone, himself included, in her dark and turbulent life. Letting her think it had happened one more time, that the last person she pinned in a little hope on had turned his back without a moments thought, Eliot couldn’t let that happen. In his own weird way, he loved Parker, maybe even more than Lindsey did really, but that was a place best left unexplored, especially right now. 

The elevator doors opened at the top of the building, the cold night air was a welcome feeling to Eliot, anything to clear his head at this moment. He had gone over and over how he was going to play this in the last few weeks. Every option had its pros and cons weighed, time and time again since deciding he absolutely had to be here tonight. Over-thinking wasn’t really Eliot’s style, but he couldn’t help it in this case. Parker had always been an exception to so many rules that he tried to keep a hold of, what was one more after everything else that had happened?

Stepping out onto the roof, the hitter felt dumb in a shirt he would never choose and his hair cut shorter than it had been in years. It wasn’t as if he wanted to dupe her, couldn’t even if he wanted to, Parker had made that clear from the start. Still he felt the need to do it this way, and there was no turning back now as he looked around at all the people, tucking his hair behind his ear in an almost nervous gesture, though he’d never admit to it.

Couples had romantic moments to the left and right, little kids ran with excitement across the space, with panicking parents chasing after them, and somewhere in a corner a photographer captured the skyline in the moonlight. There amongst it all, one young blonde stood alone, people-watching just as Eliot might if he were here for any other reason. She looked the same, not that he really thought she’d be different, but so many months apart and the life she had potentially gone back to, he had to wonder. A small part of him did consider that maybe she’d prove him an idiot and not even show, but he should’ve known better. This was Parker, despite all the crime, deep inside she was a good person with a good heart. She was so much more than a man like him or Lindsey could ever deserve, and yet the smile on her face proved she was as thrilled as a kid at Christmas to see him when he stepped out of the shadows he lived in and into the light that he never really belonged to.

Running full pelt, away from the edge for a change, Parker threw herself into his arms, almost knocking Eliot on his ass. She hugged him so tight, even a guy like him could be brought to tears by the action, but he held it together just like he always did, like he always had to.

With her arms and legs both locked tight around his body and her face buried in his neck, it was all of a few seconds before realisation hit Parker. Immediately, she brought her head up and met Eliot’s eyes with an unreadable expression.

“You don’t con your own team,” she said flatly, dropping onto her feet and letting go of him completely.

Eliot considered keeping a hold of her, if only so she didn’t bolt before he could explain, but thought better of it. After all, it might be better if she did run and never hear the awful truth. He still couldn’t quite decide what was best right now.

“In case you forgot, we haven’t been a team for a long time, Parker,” he reminded her, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he watched her, waiting to hear whatever she said next.

For a long moment, Parker only stared. It was as if she thought if she just looked hard enough she could find any answer she wanted in his face, his eyes, his distinctive stance. She was as smart as he was when it came to reading people. Her problem was explaining what she meant or knowing what to do with the information she had. It was because of these skills that she knew he was Eliot where others might easily mistake him for Lindsey. Only the dark night and the thrill of the moment had thrown her off, within seconds she knew who he really was and always would. There would never be anyone to mistake him for ever again.

There was a question in her eyes, though Parker didn’t seem willing to ask it. Eliot tried to second guess the direction she was going in, but lost the chance to try and figure it out as she turned and walked away. She didn’t go far, just over to the edge looking out, as she had been when he arrived. Whether or not she now thought Lindsey had forsaken her or if she knew the truth somehow, Eliot couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t prepared to leave here until he figured it out and dealt with the consequences. There were always consequences.

“Parker...” he said as he stepped up behind her, close enough she could feel the heat of his body, and yet not touching at all. “I didn’t know how else to handle this,” he admitted, quite the confession for a man who always had control in so many situations.

“Where is he?” she asked, as she slowly turned and met his eyes again. “Where’s Lindsey?”

Eliot blew out a breath and braced himself for whatever came next. He knew Parker was strong, she had to be to come this far through a life so battered and torn by her own personal storm, but in all the time he knew her, Eliot never did quite figure out how to gauge her reactions. From throwing herself off the ledge to beating her fists against his chest, from crying like a baby to screaming like a wounded animal, there was just no way to know how her grief would take shape. In the end he just had to bite the bullet and say the words that were currently stuck in his throat, words nobody had cared enough to hear until now, and therefore had yet to be spoken this whole time.

“Lindsey died,” he forced out, a knife in his own heart as well as hers, for more than one reason. “There was... He got into trouble and he’s gone, Parker.”

Her breath hitched in her throat the moment the word ‘died’ passed his lips, and Eliot wished it unsaid in the very same second. Still, it was the truth, and that had to be the best thing, no matter how much it hurt. He wondered vaguely if she’d doubt him, figure that maybe his twin had gone for a second try at faking his ending. Eliot ought to have known better. Parker was far too intuitive for such a trick, and besides, she had a ridiculous trust in Eliot that even the hitter himself failed to quantify.

“I’m sorry,” she said eventually, a crack in her voice that she tried but failed to swallow.

Those words had Eliot frowning in a second.

“What the hell are you sorry for?” he asked, reaching out a hand to her cheek when she tried to turn away.

He barely made contact with her skin before she flinched away again.

“I... I’m sorry for you,” she admitted, with tears in her eyes that betrayed her brave smile. “You lost your brother, for real this time,” she noted, sniffing back the crying she refused to do, just like she always refused. “I kinda didn’t expect him to show up here anyway.”

Eliot didn’t understand where she was coming from. Her words stuck him to the spot with confusion long enough for her to start walking away. She didn’t get far before his brain and then feet caught up to her, reaching for her arm to turn her around again.

“Wait a second...” he said, needing to know what she was getting at.

She couldn’t know Lindsey was dead until he said it, he knew she couldn’t. Not only would she never have been able to get such information from any source, but her surprise was so genuine when he gave her the awful news. Maybe she just didn’t trust Lindsey to follow through on a promise, and that Eliot could relate to. Still, he wanted to hear it from her. There was no second guessing with Parker, if you tried you would always be wrong.

“He didn’t love me, Eliot!” she yelled then, news he was pretty sure he already know though he had stupidly assumed she believed in his twin at least. “I’m not an idiot,” she continued a little more quietly then as faces in the crowd turned their attention to the potentially hysterical blonde. “I know relationships aren’t exactly what I’m good at, but... but even I know yelling another woman’s name when you have sex is bad.” She smiled in spite of herself as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

God, she was such a fool, Parker knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. Lindsey was kind to her, he talked to her, he wanted to know her. When they were together, she felt like she was connected to something deep and special, and chose to ignore the fact that in his sleep or in the throes of passion he thought she was some other girl, somebody named Darla. Awake and alert, he never did mention her, and when Parker told him what he’d done he acted like he didn’t understand. She knew it was a lie, knew it was all a lie from the start, mostly because she’d been lying too.

For a thief, Parker was a pretty good person. She didn’t hurt people on purpose, she stole from those who could afford it, from bad guys lately. There was no guilt, no shame, no conscience. She did what she did and she smiled through it all, even pretending to be in love with a man she barely knew.

“Darlin’, I am so sorry,” said Eliot, genuinely she knew, because that’s what her favourite hitter always was with her.

Sure, he was a bad man to most people, a criminal and a thug and a monster to anyone who didn’t know any better. Parker knew better. She saw the man behind the mask, she fell for that man though she barely knew herself that was what she was feeling. Lindsey was a substitute, as much as she was for his precious Darla. They used each other, and the realisation of it made her sick to her stomach, perhaps even more so than knowing her lover was dead and gone for good.

“Me too.” She sighed heavily, before tipping her head back and growling at the starry sky. “You were right, Eliot,” she told him then as she brought her eyes back to meet his own. “I really am crazy,” she said with a shake of her head. “I knew you were different, I kept saying I could tell but... I still wanted to believe I was wrong.”

It was the one thing that had never occurred to Eliot Spencer, the one explanation that had not once passed through his mind. He always assumed Lindsey was using Parker, perhaps to get at him at first, and later as a substitute for the woman he lost years ago, the one he never could get over. He honestly would never have guessed, had never allowed himself to imagine, that Parker was using his brother just the same way, as a substitute for Eliot himself.

It didn’t really surprise him that she hadn’t mentioned it sooner. As the little thief just said herself, she didn’t do relationships, she just didn’t understand them. To her, convention was stupid and pointless, anything outlandish was what she thrived on. The idea of her and Eliot being together when they first met was as ridiculous as any idea the hitter ever heard his whole life, and he’d heard a few, from Parker most of all. Of course they’d both changed a lot since then, when they were together on the team and perhaps even more so while they were apart.

Eliot wasn’t a fool, he knew Parker was beautiful, never more so than now as he watched her in profile looking out across the city. Words his brother had said echoed through his mind then, making him stop and think almost too hard.

_“Y'know you almost sound jealous. She wasn't yours to lose, El, or she never would've gotten so close to me."_

It made the hitter wonder how much of a fool he really had been. All this time, he had done everything he thought was right to protect Parker from harm, because he cared about her, because her safety and her happiness mattered to him. He never stopped to wonder why or give any credence to Lindsey’s words about his being jealous. Maybe that was what this was really about.

Though the world was largely dark around them, Eliot felt as if a beam of light just shot down from above, lighting the two of them up. Parker was the reason, the reason for everything he’d done these past few years since he first met her in Chicago on that first job. He walked away from the team because the look on the face when he couldn’t bear to tell her what he did for Moreau haunted him from that day in the park to now. Nate could look disappointed, Sophie could wince and back away, Hardison could get mad, it didn’t really matter. All Eliot had seen was her face, her sadness, the tears in her eyes that he never wanted to see again. Now here they were a second time, her heart aching all over again, for another reason that was connected back to him.

Walking away from her hadn’t fixed anything and it wouldn’t now either. Perhaps the universe was trying to tell them both something. They needed each other in their lives, maybe that was the point. It was only really now that Eliot realised how much he missed Parker, how much easier things would be if he had her in his life again.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out to her.

There weren’t words right now, just looks that passed between them, just like it had always been. She turned into his arms and held on tight, comforted and strangely relieved when he hugged her back and kissed her forehead. This was where she really belonged, where she always wanted to be, though even Parker herself hadn’t known it until recently, perhaps not until these last few moments here atop the Empire State.

“I missed you,” she admitted, a strange confession for a thief that never seemed to feel much of anything, much less say so when she did.

“Yeah, I know the feelin’,” he promised her as he kept a hold of her and looked down into her eyes. “This world ain’t gonna go easy on us, darlin’,” he told her then, their joint fate apparently accepted without either ever actually saying the words - from here on out they were together and that was just the way it would be.

“It never has yet, and we made it this far. Some people don’t,” she added, almost wishing she hadn’t when he looked away.

There was no escaping thoughts or mentions of Lindsey. He had mattered to both of them, in such very different ways. They could find a way to love and hate his brother, her lover, a man that had fought for good and evil both at various times in the life that was cut too short. Now he was definitely and forever gone, but never forgotten.

“I guess he’s up there now, right?” said Parker, tipping her head back to watch the stars. “People say that there are spirits in the dark, souls held in the stars... Do you believe that?” she asked in earnest as her eyes return to meet Eliot’s own just briefly before he looked up into the dark night sky too.

“I don’t know, Parker,” he told her, the honest truth.

Nobody knew for sure where people went when they were done with this world. What Eliot was pretty clear on was that even if the good went to Heaven, to the skies above to watch over Earth with the angels or whatever, there was no way Lindsey was one of them. Still, it was comforting to think it was possible, and if it helped Parker, he wasn’t about to shatter her pretty little fantasy, at least, not right now.

Holding on tight to the only woman that was ever going to matter to him this much, Eliot knew that Parker was going to be his world now, and he was to be hers. One of the most romantic places to be stood, but it wasn’t passion or proposals that were on their minds. They needed each other, they could take care of each other, and find a path together through lives that never had been and never would be easy or smooth.

If he had achieved nothing else worth mentioning in his young and mixed up life, Lindsey could at least rest easy knowing he had put these two people on the right path together. Eliot would strive to be the better man that his brother had never managed, and Parker would be stronger for another experience she had gone through.

Maybe it wasn’t the perfect way to find a happy ending, if that’s even what they’d got or what they might find at the end of this road they were starting down. One thing was for sure, wherever they were headed, it was together from here on out. Though Eliot had a twin, it was not his brother that made him whole. Parker was the half he was missing, as he was for her apparently. Together was the only way to be whole, the only way to survive.


End file.
